Glorious 39

I had the privilege of attending the world premiere of this film at the Toronto International Film Festival last night. It tells the story of the aristocratic Keyes family in the days leading up to the outbreak of WWII. The father played superbly by Bill Nighy is an influential MP and an all round "good egg" of a dad to his three children. The oldest daughter Ann, played by Romola Garai is an adopted child but seems to fit in perfectly with her younger siblings and is the life and soul of the family. The film starts as a classic English period piece with lavish settings in Norfolk and London involving picnics and parties. However, as war gets closer, dramatic and strange events involving the family and friends slowly change the mood of the film. Other reviewers have made comparisons to Hitchcock's films and I have to agree with them. I enjoyed the film but there were definitely a few situations that did not ring true. The ending was particularly clumsy and there were some strange scenes that just didn't seem to fit. At 130 minutes it was probably 20 minutes too long. There were good performances by Julie Christie as a batty aunt and Jeremy Northam as a sinister government official. A good watch if you like British mysteries

I first came across the captivating young British actress Romola Garai in the 2004 movie "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights". Since then, most of her work has been for television, but she was back on the large screen in the 2009 film "Glorious 39". The '39' refers to 1939 when Britain was on the edge of war with Germany. 'Glorious' relates to both the nature of that year's summer and the affectionate name for Garai's character Anne, the adopted daughter of the aristocratic Keyes family which is headed by an influential Conservative Member of Parliament who is appalled by the notion of the country going to war for the second time in only a couple of decades.

Written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff as a kind of Hitchcockian thriller, this is a work replete with well-known British character actors spanning the age range from Christopher Lee & Julie Christie through Bill Nighy & Jeremy Northam to David Tennant & Eddie Redmayne. With so much talent available, one has a right to expect more than is actually delivered. The plotting is rather silly and often slow and the characterisation somewhat stilted, while the ending is most unsatisfactory. The locations - mostly in Norfolk - are fine though.

Summer 1939, and as much of Britain prepares for war, a shady cabal of aristocrats and Government officials plots to mollify Hitler and secure a quick, painless peace. When Anne Keyes (Romola Garai), the adopted daughter of a wealthy family, stumbles across the conspiracy, she finds her life under threat - as one by one her allies turn out to be traitors, or turn up dead. In his first feature for 10 years, writer-director Stephen Poliakoff deals with some weighty themes - fascism, adoption, familial loyalty - while alighting on fascinating aspects of the readying for war, such as pets being killed and heaped onto pyres. "It's like a vision of hell, isn't it?" asks Anne's father (Bill Nighy). "Animals going onto a fire in a quiet English summer." Despite its depth, though, Glorious 39 is really an old-fashioned thriller: engrossing and atmospheric, with a gnawing, ever-present sense of menace and some mightily effective set pieces.

The film does have its faults, floundering in the final 15 and closing with an atrocious scene that serves no purpose, beyond fulfilling a perceived desire for a happy ending and satiating Poliakoff's need to hammer the audience over the head with poorly-conceived pseudo-irony. In common with his 1991 film Close My Eyes, it also has moments of stiltedness and artificiality that snap you out of the story. But for all that, I don't understand the hammering it's been given by most critics. Its Hitchcockian elements - the stomach-tightening tension piquing during a slew of well thought-out suspense scenes - are marvellously handled, and the film is also notable for Garai's expressive, layered turn, which catches the eye in a cast that includes Nighy, Julie Christie, Jeremy Northam, David Tennant and Jenny Agutter. And Christopher Lee, but I don't like him.

We can't help but believe there could have been a good movie here, based on the beginnings of World War II. There has been scant examination of the angle of patriotic Brits who believed Neville Chamberlain's strategy of appeasement was the only hope to save an ill-equipped and unprepared Britain faced with Nazi expansion. That is understandable, considering this movie took place two years before the United States entered the war. It is entirely plausible that some elements of British intelligentsia favored leaving the Nazis to their own devices, so that English society could be saved. However, this movie darts, flits and dances all over the screen, where we often are unsure who we should be rooting for. Even in the end, we are disappointed. Many of the scenes do little but tease us, with no payoff. It's too bad. A good idea - as well as some good actors - were wasted in this production.

Though there have been books and other films that deal with the dissidence between the aristocrats and the general populace of England around the topic of WW II, this beautifully executed 'historical thriller' brings many aspects of those discrepancies of opinion to light in a manner not unlike the similar thought processes in Germany at the same time: the gentry of Germany turned a blind eye to the events surrounding them (The Final Solution) in order to believe in what they chose to believe as a promise for stabilization and world importance as a genteel country. Writer/Director Stephen Poliakoff has based his examination of this problem on focusing on the life of one particular character whose fate was the standard of the dispossessed.

The year is 1939 and the aristocratic family of Sir Alexander Keyes (Bill Nighy) and his wife Maud (Jenny Agutter) are living what seems to be an idyllic life with their children Ralph (Eddie Redmayne), Celia (Juno Temple) and the eldest, Anne (Romula Garai) who we soon discover was adopted before the Keyes discovered they could bear children on their own. Anne is a beautiful creative actress who seems to make the family proud. The family is visited by an old friend Hector (David Tennant) who at dinner is very vocal about the fact that Hitler is a threat to England and that England must stop Hitler before he destroys them instead of pursuing a course of appeasement of Hitler that would prevent disturbance of their elegant way of life on the island of England. It is obvious that Sir Alexander is more concerned with his duties as a member of parliament and his maintenance of his family history and wealth, and his responses to Hector as well as to the mysterious Balcombe (Jeremy Northam) from the Foreign Office and the young Lawrence (Charlie Cox), a new member of the Foreign Office who is courting Anne, suggest subterfuge.

The family is visited by the very proper Aunt Elizabeth (Julie Christie) and while the entire family is on picnic, an infant transiently disappears while under Anne's care. From this point the story takes a dark turn: Anne continues filming in London with her close friend, actor Gilbert (Hugh Bonneville), and Anne discovers some phonograph records in the basement of the Keyes home, records that contain not fox trots but instead 'conversations' from meetings. Suspicions about evil derring-do arise when the family learns that Hector has committed suicide soon followed by the suicide of Gilbert and eventually the bizarre discovery of Lawrence's body among the pet animals ordered to be put to death to make the people of England more ready for abrupt changes. War with Germany begins and changes the atmosphere and results in changes in the Keyes family: Anne is imprisoned by the family because 'she is really not one of us' and unravels the harrowing mystery of the Keyes' family involvement in the dark events of the present and the past.

The mood of England of 1939 is beautifully captured by cinematographer Danny Cohen and the musical score by Adrian Johnston illustrates the dichotomy of the free-spirited Anne and the dark underpinnings of the Keyes family. Romola Garai is excellent in her treacherous role as are the other stars. Small roles by Toby Regbo, Christopher Lee, Corin Redgrave and others make this a cast rich in some of the finest British actors of the day. GLORIOUS 39 ('Glorious' is the nickname given Anne) is an enlightening film that addresses many significant issues too infrequently addressed by works of history.

Grady Harp